FORT WORTH, Texas — Over 300 workers joined a spirited Teamsters Local 997 rally outside the Molson Coors brewery here March 17, marking one month on strike by 420 union members. The rally was too big to hold on the picket line, so it took place in the parking lot of the Bimbo bakery next door, which is organized by Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 111.
Teamsters national President Sean O’Brien and General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman joined the action. “I can’t think of a better place to be for St. Patrick’s Day,” O’Brien told the union crowd. “We have a great opportunity here. We have an opportunity to take on corporate America. Molson Coors picked a fight with the wrong union. Think we can take on a schoolyard bully who does not respect us?”
The crowd yelled back, “Yes!”
“Teamsters across the country are asking Americans nationwide to join in boycotting Molson Coors until they do right by the people who make their products,” he said.
Molson Coors — which also brews Yuengling, Miller, Pabst, Simply Spiked and other brands — raked in record profits in 2023. But the pay package they offered workers was an insulting 99 cents an hour over a three-year contract.
Rick Miedema, secretary-treasurer of Local 997, said, “The company made a poor offer to the union and they have been on strike for 30 days. We need to keep pushing forward — one day stronger, one day longer! The labor movement is alive and well in Fort Worth, Texas.”
“I am here to support the Teamsters against corporate greed and we need to all stand together for solidarity,” David Menefee, business agent of BCTGM Local 111, which organizes the four Bimbo plants and other facilities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, told the Militant. “Our local has brought water, donuts, chocolates and other goods to the Teamsters 997 pickets and will continue to do so.”
Other speakers included Brent Taylor, from Teamsters Joint Council 80 and Dallas Local 745; Robert Lopez, organizer of Teamsters Local 767 at UPS in Arlington; Katina Range and Margarite Rosas from American Postal Workers Union Local 732 in Dallas; local politicians; and 97-year-old civil rights fighter Opal Lee, who walked from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., in 2016 as part of the successful fight to make Juneteenth a national holiday.
This is the first strike Teamsters Local 997 has mounted at Molson Coors. It’s not unusual, strikers told the Militant, for 100 of them to turn out on the picket line. This is facilitated by the Teamsters’ decision to boost their strike benefits to $1,000 a week.